A Mouth Full of Nails
by Yxonomei
Summary: [GaaNaru, implied SasuNaru, yaoi, possibly disturbing content.] There are some lessons Naruto refuses to learn, and friends he refuses to give up on, even after all these years.


**Warnings:** Slash/Yaoi, implied violence, implied dub-con, established relationship, romance, humor, angst

**Pairings:** Gaara/Naruto, implied twisted Sasuke/Naruto

**Rating:** R

**Disclaimer:** Owned by Kishimoto Masashi, et al.

**Summary:** There are some lessons Naruto refuses to learn, or friends he refuses to give up on, even after all these years. (Fic request by **cellia**: Gaara/Naruto, any rating, prompt: Leadership.

A/N 2: Be forewarned—this is a peculiar child of a peculiar brain. Whether the reader may find anything worthy of approbation, the author cannot say—except that zie hopes the reader will show enough human respect and dignity to refrain from sacrificing zir upon the alter of the reader's indignation. Thank you most kindly for your time and for, if you may be so inclined, a memento of your visit in the form of a review. The author is, as always, the humble and pitiable servant of your entertainment.

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::A Mouth Full of Nails::

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With the sun slowly sinking into his skin and the glacial erratic warm against his bare belly, chest, arms and thighs, Uzumaki Naruto slides between slumber and wakefulness. A warm, sticky late-summer breeze plays across his back, drying the beads of sweat gathering along the furrow of his spine, beneath the bandages about his upper torso and back, and the reddening nape of his neck. It's too hot to move, too humid for shade to make a difference, and he has a two week reprieve from work. So this two week vacation is more like sick leave, and, okay, maybe he's supposed to be spending it at the hospital, but the rattling of the fan and its utter and complete failure to cool his tiny, sweltering hospital room is justification enough for escaping to the river—and it's not like he's exerting himself now. Sure, getting here left him a tad out of breath and sent the myriad of healing lacerations and contusions across his scrawny frame into sun-bright-bursting agony, but now he's just lying here, not moving a muscle, and generally doing what the nurses have been pestering him to do: rest. He's resting. Totally resting. Just… not where those nurses are. 

He is of the opinion that location doesn't matter. Nope. Not in the least. Lying here in the sun with the river growling about the base of the boulder is just as good as lying in an over-starched hospital bed with the sound of machines beeping in the surrounding rooms.

"Everyone is in a panic looking for you." Cool fingertips spill down the line of his sweat-damp spine and hesitate at the elastic band of his low-slung, hospital-issue trousers. Mmm. Gaara.

"I doubt it," Naruto says around a drowsy yawn as he rolls his cheek against the downy skin covering his crossed arms. "You can touch me wherever," he adds, kicking his feet as they dangle over the uneven edge of the boulder into the cool mist frothing up.

"Tsunade-sama and Haruno-san are quite agitated about your sudden disappearance." Two fingers hook about the elastic and slowly tug the worn cotton down over the twin rounds of his buttocks. "The hospital staff as well. A missing _kage_ is generally of concern." Naruto squirms around a bit to help his lover peel off the loose trousers and undershorts. "I was worried."

"I can take care of myself," he thinks about saying, but settles for a sleepy, "I'm sorry." He's not—for this time or the times before—and Gaara knows this. Naruto will do as Naruto wills, no matter how stupid or idiotic anyone else believes his choices to be. A human heart is a cruelly unpredictable organ.

He can still smell the wet loam, the dripping leaves and glistening bark; can taste the bite of a sudden storm that cuts through a summer's twilight with startling ferocity—the burnt ozone, the heavy, metallic air—and a kiss as bitter and red as their internecine compulsion; can feel the lips and teeth and tongue, rough and lacerating, against his mouth.

_"Do they really think these walls can protect you from me?"_

Gaara's cool hand curls about one buttock, fingers just barely dipping into the shadowed divide, skin smooth and sand-worn. Naruto adores Gaara's skin, how sleek it is when sliding against his body, beneath his hungry lips, and that earthy, animal smell that rises from it when they're tangled together, moving together.

But there's always… yes, always…

In the rain. A world of pain and blood and chakra. Of love and hate and need. Emotions like the first burn of liquor down an untutored throat. Swallow. Gag. Cough. Swallow.

Standing in the rain, screaming at him to stop being a fucking bastard and come back, speaking far more eloquently with fists.

"It's a lost cause," Gaara says in a voice just barely touched by deeper feelings of resentment, of jealousy and helplessness. "He's been lost to you for years."

A sudden cloud obfuscates the sun, but the heat still builds beneath Naruto's caramel flesh. He rolls up into the proprietary hand curving about his ass and opens his eyes to the gem-laced waters rushing between the rocky banks of the river. The warm, gritty stone feels surprisingly nice against his naked penis, a bit more abrasive that his wont, but still not bad at all.

"You cannot simply abandon your position because of a few rumors about him nearby. You cannot risk your life—not when it no longer belongs to you." A mouth falls upon his shoulder, hot and wet. "It belongs to your village and all those you protect."

"And you?" They weren't rumors. The bruises and healing wounds are proof of that. The split in his bottom lip and the red mark at the meeting of shoulder and neck are proof of that.

"All those precious to you and those to whom you are precious." The words and humid breaths fall into his ear as those warm, welcomed lips trace the outer rim. Fingers press in deeper, the barest of touches across the tight pucker of his anus. He turns his head and meets Gaara's well-formed mouth and that gently throbbing kiss.

He can taste the bitter green tea Gaara loves so and a hint of pickled _daikon_. Sliding his tongue along the smooth surfaces of the other's teeth, pricking himself against sharp canines, and deeper to pump and glide against another, Naruto feasts his senses upon his lover: the feel of chapped lips, the slick sound of their intimacy, the pulse of red-pink-white behind closed lids as the sun breaks through, the odor of their sweat and sun-warmed flesh, and a deeper, darker, more secret flavor passing between their fused mouths.

"I really hope you didn't toss my clothes into the river a little while ago," Naruto mumbles into the kiss after a moment.

"Would it teach you a lesson?"

Naruto presses his filling cock against the rough stone and wiggles a bit. "Not so much."

"You would still—"

"Always."

"You sound like you might be in with love him." Cold, biting words. Words like broken glass and razorblades.

"I could have been, maybe—if he had stayed." Naruto twists about, reaching out to grab hold of the slowly retreating redhead. He smiles and draws Gaara back to him. "But whatever happens, I come back to you, you know? And you always find me if I wander."

Pale green eyes catch hold of the gloaming as it begins to feather across the sky. "Someday soon I will not be able to leave you. Suna and Konoha will come to blows when that happens."

"Planning on kidnapping me, are we?"

"Yes."

_"Do they really think these walls can protect you from me?"_

So is Sasuke.

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End

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The author is most humbled by the favorable response zie has received by a particularly kind group of esteemed individuals. To those exquisitely beneficent and magnanimous people, zie would offer of zir deepest gratitude: "When the Caged Bird Screams" -- Shaay, keele, s2kiss, Aaye, Jhonnie, Draco's Worst Nightmare, FREAKSHOW1, obsessivesyndrome, Black-Rose23, Aseret Kitsune, sszw85; "KO! White Satin Panties" -- Kitsune Rane, htotheizzo, japinezeartst, Draco's Worst Nightmare, akuma-river, Akutan, Azamiko, the Birdster, Myuu-Foxgirl, Mitaretai, keruki, quaero lumen, Aseret Kitsune. 

Particular thanks go out to **Draco's Worst Nightmare** and **Aseret****Kitsune** who took the time to review both of the above stories as well as others. As the author is once again starting up zir "Frequent Reviewer" program, zie would like to offer these two extraordinarily generous people zir writing services: one request with any pairing the author has written thus far in the Naruto fandom (also including KakaNaru, IruNaru, NeijiNaru, OrochiNaru, KabutoNaru, or KyuuNaru), any kink (except scat) and any rating up to R (for this site). Your kind words and support inspire the author beyond zir capacity for language can express. Thank you truly.

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